Yesterday I had a totally frustrating day. It started in the morning. The phone wouldd ring … usually when I was in the bathroom … and by the time I’d get to it, no one would be there. This happened several times. Finally, I decided that perhaps the class coordinator for Joann’s was calling me so I decided to call her to see if I had classes scheduled this week. I had no dial tone.

I got out my cell phone and tried to get in touch with the phone company. It’s a good thing I had a bank of unused minutes because I can’t tell you how long I was on the phone with them. Finally, they hung up on me! But before that happened, the man I was speaking with told me the problem must be in my phone instrument because he would call my number, the phone would ring, but I couldn’t answer him. He had me go to one of the other phones in the house to see if I had a problem there. I had a dial tone on the phone in the basement but when I tried to call someone, all I got was a busy signal.

Adding to my frustration, a friend from Florida was coming in town yesterday and planned to call me to set up a lunch date later this week. The phone range and, of course, I couldn’t talk with her. Fortunately, the message did get recorded on the answering machine. But we needed to set a time and place to meet. Back to the cell phone. I reached her but she was having phone problems of her own. Eventually we settled on a time and place … but it took I don’t know how many phone calls back and forth to do it.

I went to Best Buy last night to get a new phone. I’ve never heard of the brand I bought but hoped it would work. I installed it this morning and have gotten one call on it so here’s hoping everything is solved. There is, however, one problem left. I can’t figure out how to hook up the answering machine to this new phone. Just something else to frustrate me.